


Say Something

by angel_with_a_phaser



Category: Scrubs (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Perry being an ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11750085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_with_a_phaser/pseuds/angel_with_a_phaser
Summary: JD is pining hard and all the names/rants are starting to take their toll.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I do not own Scrubs or the characters mentioned)
> 
> The title is taken from Say Something by A Great Big World

“For the last time, Carla, Turk would never dream of leaving you for me,” JD said, his arms swinging violently in the air as he explained, “We’re just friends! He’s just my little Chocolate Bear, nothing else!”

“Mmhmm,” Carla replied, not convinced. She raised an eyebrow, looking JD up and down, enjoying how it made him squirm, before letting him off the hook by turning back to the charts in her hands.

JD continued to grumble, Carla only picking up on something about “would be easier for Rowdy if his parents stayed together” before rolling her eyes. She was about to comment on whether JD had work he needed to be doing, when Dr. Cox chose that moment to sidle up alongside him.

“Ya know, Kathy, as much as it fills my stomach with butterflies and makes my heart go all aflutter whenever you graciously slack off and leave me to attend most, nay,  _all_  of your patients, it would really make me feel warm and cozy inside if we practiced something Bobbo likes to call ‘teamwork’, i.e., you treat your patients so I can treat mine without the added joy and excitement of running around the entire hospital wondering just where in the world Newbie could be. Now, Sara, if you are all finished with your girly gossip time with the nurses, why don’t you get back to work and be the goddamn doctor you were trained to be, mmkay?”

With one last glare pointed at JD, Dr. Cox sauntered back down the hallway, nameless interns jumping out of his way.

Carla rolled her eyes before looking back at JD.

“Bambi, you okay?” Carla asked as she took in his hunched shoulders and the defeated look casting a shadow on JD’s usually sunny face.

“What? Oh, ya,” JD mumbled, flashing a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “I’m, uh…I’m just going to go check on Mr. Reed again.”

“Bambi, wait,” Carla said, reaching out to grab JD by the arm, “What’s the matter? Dr. Cox always rants like that and it never seemed to bother you before.”

JD looked away, the corners of his mouth turning down slightly.

“It just gets old, you know?”

“What gets old?”

“The name-calling, the long rants, how he spends every moment trying to belittle me. I could brush it aside before, laugh it off, but now…” he faded off, shrugging.

Carla sighed. “JD, maybe if you told him how you felt, you know, about him…”

“And get made fun of some more?” JD laughed without humor, “‘Hey Dr. Cox, just wanted to tell you, I’ve been in love with you for over a year now and I’d appreciate it if you’d be more respectful toward my feelings.’ Yeah, great advice, Carla.”

“I’m just saying, talk to him about it. You don’t have to tell him everything, maybe start small. Ask him to stop calling you girls’ names. I’m sure if you approach him maturely he will take you seriously.”

“Alright, I’ll try. But I’m not getting my hopes up,” JD mumbled. He grabbed Mr. Reed’s test results and walked away from the nurses’ station.

But despite what he had just told Carla, he began to feel a little bit of hope. He had never actually considered speaking plainly with Dr. Cox. He may mock him for suddenly being “Mr. Stick-Up-For-Myself” but maybe it would actually make the name-calling stop. Each girly name he came up with was another knife in his heart, reminding him that Dr. Cox could never actually harness any real feelings for him. JD had come to terms with that soon after realizing just how much he loved the other doctor, but constantly being reminded of it was not doing anything to help his situation.

Pushing all of this aside, JD put on his best “friendly doctor” smile as he entered Mr. Reed’s room to tell him that, no, he did not have cancer. Being able to deliver good news always made JD happy and his heart felt a little less heavy after that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD has a conversation with an emotionally constipated Dr. Cox

“So anyway, babe,” Turk said as he stuffed more of his sandwich into his mouth, “I’m thinking we need to start letting Rowdy sleep on the bed with us.”

“Turk! I am not letting that thing anywhere near me when I’m sleeping!”

“I’m just saying, he gets lonely!”

Carla rolled her eyes as Turk’s pager suddenly went off.

“I gotta go, I’ll see you guys later,” Turk said. After kissing Carla’s head and a nod toward JD, he was off.

“See ya,” JD replied just a little too late, looking up from the Jell-O he had been poking at. He had been imagining a little city of Jell-O people running in terror from the giant spoon that was descending from the sky.

“JD, Bambi, are you doing okay? Did you talk to Dr. Cox yet?” Carla asked.

JD sighed. “No, one of his patients, Mrs. Wilkins, crashed this morning. I figured it would be best if I kept my distance for a few hours.”

“Mrs. Wilkins was 92 years old and has been in a coma for two weeks. I think he saw it coming. Now can we please talk about why you’re stalling this?”

“Maybe I don’t want to give him another reason to make fun of me,” JD retorted. “Besides, what’s so wrong with just keeping things the way they are?”

The more he thought about confronting Dr. Cox, the more he realized that being called Amy or Claire or any other girly name isn’t actually that bad. He could live with it. He has so far, at least.

“Because you’re miserable! JD, the only way you can make any sort of progress with that man is by standing up to him. And besides,” she continued, cutting off whatever JD had been about to say, “it’s not like you have much to lose.”

“Yeah,” JD conceded unhappily, poking at his Jell-O again. The Jell-O people had found shelter inside Mount Jell-O while he was talking with Carla, but the Evil Sky Spoon continued to penetrate the side of the mountain.

“So, you’re going to talk to him before the end of the day?” Carla asked, bringing his mind back to their lunch table. With a quick glance at Carla’s raised eyebrow and seeing the challenge in her eyes, he knew this was more of a command than a question.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to him,” he replied, smiling briefly at her. She smiled back as she stood up.

“Come on then, we have patients to care for and you have a doctor to see.”

Groaning inwardly, JD grabbed his tray and trailed behind Carla. All the times JD had tried to ask Dr. Cox to treat him with more respect suddenly came to mind. Each of those had left him with a long rant and look of disgust from the older doctor, followed by another part of JD’s heart cracking. One of these days it was going to completely shatter, he could feel it. Maybe if he could convince Dr. Cox to lay off the girl’s names then he could stall his inevitable heartbreak.

 

 

Perry sighed as he disposed of his gloves and exited his patient’s room. How many times does he have to say “you’re gonna _die_ if you keep smoking” before it finally gets through these people’s thick skulls? With Mrs. Wilkins dead now, two codes after lunch, and now this idiot being admitted for the third goddamn time due to his ever-developing lung disease, all Perry wanted was to go home and finish off a few glasses of scotch.

“Hey, Dr. Cox!” came the particularly whiny voice of his only reason for believing there could be a God because only an all-knowing entity could know just what kind of person could push all of his buttons and then throw him into Perry’s life as a preface for the “eternal damnation” he was doomed to, according to his sister. Of course the most annoying person in the world had to be the one that dug himself so far under his skin, making Perry have thoughts that he never allowed himself to actually consider.

Screw it, he was going to drink the whole bottle.

“Theresa, there had better be a good reason for you violating one of the few moments in the day that I find joy in, namely, those brief seconds when I can enjoy the sound of no one, and I mean _no one_ , speaking to me. Now, unless someone’s life depends on the next words that are about to leave your mouth, I can guarantee the words that follow them will be, ‘Oh, dear God! Someone please get this crazed doctor off of me!’”

“Dr. Cox, I was wondering if I could speak with you about a…personal matter,” JD said, ignoring Perry’s speech. His eyes never looked away from Perry’s, but he could see a bit of hesitancy mixed in with determination. Perry looked away from JD’s baby blues before he could get lost in them, because he was _really_ not going to dwell on those thought now. Or ever, for that matter.

“Did you not read through the pamphlets I gave you?” His sigh was filled with mock exasperation and fondness. “Annabelle, I told you those things were completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of. It means you’re becoming a woman! And not a moment too soon, we were beginning to wonder if you were going to be a late bloomer, but look at you now! Filling out so nicely, the boys will be all over you—”

“Perry!” JD shouted. Perry’s eyebrows shot up as he flicked his nose and crossed his arms defensively. JD realized that a line had been crossed and he approached more cautiously.  

“Look,” he began quietly, while still maintaining eye contact. That was key, Carla had said. “I know it makes you feel important, like you always have the upper-hand, whenever you mock my masculinity and call me names, but I would appreciate it if you and I could have a more professional relationship. I don’t mind if you don’t call me Dr. Dorian—not a lot of people actually do, besides the patients—but I wouldn’t mind John or Dorian if JD is a little too friendly for you. Hell, I don’t even care if you keep calling me Newbie, even though I’ve been here for a couple years now. Just…”

JD faltered, his voice catching as the pain of being pushed aside so many times by the man he loves was being brought forward.

“…can you please just do this for me? No more girly names. Please?” JD realized it sounded like he was begging, which was not what he had intended, but he was desperate for Dr. Cox to understand just how much it hurt him. If this was the only form of respect Dr. Cox would be willing to show JD then he’d take it.

Perry couldn’t quite believe the words that were coming out of JD’s mouth. Where had this newfound confidence come from? The bright blue puppy-dog eyes that JD shot at him as he said ‘please’ caught Perry off guard and made his heart stutter.

No. Those thoughts had been banished from Perry’s mind. There was no way he was going down that road. His frustration with himself and the situation in general had him lashing out at JD.

“Listen up, Doris, Kelly, Ashley, Laura, Heather, Samantha and, of course, Clarabelle. You seemed to be routinely mistaken in believing that I actually give a crap about the girlish feelings that your raging hormones just won’t allow you to keep inside. I understand that writing in your tear-stained diary just isn’t enough sometimes, but let me explain to you how this all works. I drag myself out of bed every morning to come back to this hell-hole for the sole purpose of treating the people I have been bound by oath to treat. Any relationships I have here that I have any sort of desire to uphold are the professional ones that allow me to eat a sandwich or watch my soaps instead of running around every minute, performing mundane tasks that any five-year-old with a needle could perform in order to keep these people alive. You, and all of these other people who call themselves doctors, are nothing to me but mindless minions. Do you understand? We are _not_ friends. I will continue to call you whatever name comes to mind at the time just to remind you that you are, essentially, another nameless doctor who will stay here for a couple years after residency and then go off to another equally hellish medical center. Now can you please, for the love of _God_ , grow a pair so I can get on with my life?”

 _Ah,_ JD thought, _There’s the heartbreak. I knew it would be soon._

Perry expected some sort of retort, for JD to call bullshit on Perry’s claim that he lacks any feelings toward him or the others at the hospital. He was prepared for whatever wild theory JD had concocted about him.

He was not prepared for the pain in JD’s eyes.

“Right. Okay.” JD mumbled, looking away from Perry at last. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

Perry’s heart ached when he heard the tremble in JD’s voice and saw the tears lining his eyes. JD made his escape before any of them could break free.

Perry sighed as he watched his retreating form.

“Damn it.”


End file.
